Top 50 Singles of 2004

The advent of new technology is notorious for altering listening habits. In 2003, widespread file-sharing, per-song downloads, and open-minded discourse between online music fans began breaking down the long-held biases we sometimes stubborn indie music fans once harbored for non-indie music. Easy and immediate access to any track we wanted-- and the ability to look into friends' MP3 folders and see that we weren't the only ones who dug that Kelis song-- allowed us to realize that, hey, maybe what we all really love is just good songs.

As music in both the mainstream and the underground continues to push the envelope, tying ourselves to outmoded rules and regulations that dictate which music is or isn't acceptable to enjoy seems needlessly limiting. It now seems clear that, despite their differences in politics, these two sworn enemies can peacefully co-exist on our hard drives without one corrupting or destroying the ideals of the other.

Now, as iPods continue to gain prominence, our self-determined playlists-- increasingly consisting of recommendations by friends, websites, message boards, and MP3 blogs-- offer what commercial radio never could: No commercials, no song overplayed, and no fucking Nickelback slow jams, ever. If ever there was a year to celebrate the single, this is it.

50: Johnny Boy
"You Are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve"
[Vertigo]

Phil Spector doesn't need Johnny Boy to further cement his status as a rock-solid mountain of pure-cut psychotic godliness, but they certainly aren't hurting him any. Though he's yet to produce anything this decade (or last) that climbs the concrete Wall of Sound he poured during the 1960s, his influence has echoed-- literally-- in leagues of C-86 girl groups, and now in this London duo's extremely promising second single. The eye-catchingly titled "You Are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve" is eight miles of reverb, uncontained and beautiful, with giant clanging church bells and fireworks going off in the background. It sounds like a big cold wind, and appropriately, it gives me chills. --Ryan Schreiber

49: The Von Bondies
"C'mon C'mon"
[WEA]

After an unassuming intro, excitable boy Jason Stollsteimer wails as he grieves over the baddest of bad breakups and wonders "was it right to leave?" and "will I never learn?" In a taunting call-and-response, Marcie Bolen and Carrie Smith chant the song title and push him toward his emotional breaking point. It's two minutes of powerful punk pop that now provides the theme for FX's firefighter drama "Rescue Me" (over the obvious choice) and the, um, heart of The Von Bondies' major-label debut, Pawn Shoppe Heart. The song palpitates with such intense sexual antagonism that it abruptly keels over before Stollsteimer can get to the last chorus. --Stephen M. Deusner

48: Estelle
"1980"
[V2]

I'm all for British hip-hop, but does it always have to sound so damn cold? I was just in England, and it doesn't get that wintry; yet the sound of garage/grime continues to sound more foreboding, metallic, and icy. Fortunately, Estelle didn't get the memo, and her eager childhood scrapbook is appropriately drenched in retro-soul syrup as warm as a Motown August-- all torch-song piano and swooping strings. To my American ears, Estelle's round vowel sounds don't sound so foreign when she rap-sings about Connect Four and Cosbys, and it all reminds me of when Lauryn Hill wasn't being willfully difficult. --Rob Mitchum

47: Xiu Xiu
"I Luv the Valley OH!"
[5RC]

In 2004, indie cheerleaders got a new slogan: "Je t'aime the valley, OH!" wails Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart on a track that brazenly attempts to recast emotional excess as a tool rather than something to downplay. Emo? Yes! At once one of the most overwrought and tenderly dynamic songs of the year, "I Luv the Valley OH!" wedges teary-eyed bluster into an immaculate pop structure. Drowsy electric guitars seep through snarling effects as Stewart presides over the milieu like a heartbroken Zeus. In a different era, Stewart might be institutionalized for such lack of composure, but this track compels us to wonder if it's the calm and collected who have it all wrong. --Sam Ubl

46: Justus KöhnckeZwei Photonen EP
[Kompakt]

With memorable A/Bs from Rex the Dog, Kaito, and Superpitcher, Cologne's Kompakt label had better success with 12-inches than LPs this year, and no single release from the label's 2004 campaign stood out as much as Justus Köhncke's Zwei Photonen EP. Clocking in at just under eight minutes long, the superb A-side "Timecode" literally tick-tocks its way through a slow fizz of warm synth pads and twerky basslines to a gushing refrain without ever once repeating the same bar. It's basically French house with a Kompakt-influenced, motorik bent, and about as addictive as fun. With its percolating synths and narcotized melodies, singalong "The Answer Is Yes" marks an acute left turn, but it also has its charms, provided you've managed to flush the "Timecode" withdrawal out of your system. --Mark Pytlik

45: Ratatat
"17 Years"
[Audio Dregs]

In a year when indie rock could have used a few more surprises, a bedroom laptop composer and a hired studio hand (whose résumé included work with Ben Kweller and Dashboard Confessional) joined forces and squeezed the theme music to Tetris in between hyper-compressed power chords over a beat as appropriate for a monster truck as it is an Escalade. More surprises came when the squealing MIDI melody that inspired righteous, irony-free air guitaring was, in fact, made by a guitar. Ratatat's album didn't live up to this track's promise, but "17 Years" is the sound of hip-hop, rock, and Nintendo perfectly co-existing. --Jason Crock

44: Mclusky
"She Will Only Bring You Happiness"
[Too Pure]

Andy Falkous' voice might have lost some of its glottal sputum on The Difference Between You and Me Is That I'm Not on Fire, but the softened approach yielded nothing less than the best song Mclusky ever recorded. On "She Will Only Bring You Happiness" Falkous' lyrical vitriol is intact, only done up in subversively comely raiment. Chiming over a jangly eighth-note guitar melody, he effortlessly morphs from reprobate to refined, spewing to-dos with rehab-like sobriety: "Be erect by half-past 10/ Be strong/ Be proud/ Be able/ Be charmed." It's an admirable, if surprising, about face, until the final refrain-- in a round -- jettisons all intimations of seriousness: "Our old singer is a sex criminal." No wonder they used to sound so nasty. --Sam Ubl

Borrowing liberally from Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Pt. 2", Goldfrapp turn a pretty good single into a hedonistic, black-out masterpiece. The bass churns underneath the thick shuffle, and rubber-band synth lets its overtones do the dirty work. Allison Goldfrapp's vocals are treated as shadowy wallpaper, never once getting in the way of the midnight impressionism. This was kind of slept on, as great 2004 singles go, only showing up on the second of two "Strict Machine" 12-inches in May. Maybe DJs filed it before hitting that second track. Their loss, your gain: 515K is calling. --Dominique Leone

42: The Streets
"Dry Your Eyes"
[679]

That's how it feels, that moment when it's just starting to dawn on you and there's nothing you can do and it's already over and your vision blurs and you just stare off into the middle distance trying to think of something to say. "I can't imagine my life without you and me/ There's things I can't imagine doing, things I can't imagine seeing," says Mike Skinner in his talking-to-a-girl-on-the-phone voice, a fragile wheedle. Your friends tell you it's all for the best, but it still feels the same. "Dry Your Eyes" is the one great standalone track on A Grand Don't Come for Free because it's about the moment that the world stops, the only moment that matters. --Tom Breihan

41: ExcepterVacation EP
[Fusetron]

Until I heard this track, I was always the asshole at parties who denied the existence of ghosts. Man, was I a fucking idiot at parties. On "Vacation", a ghost hotboxes heaven with a sound that's half stuttering riddim and half house remix of the Cardigans' "Lovefool". The noise is lush but loud, and wakes up the ghost's dad. First ghost dad yells a lot, then (inexplicably) he starts impersonating the good Dr. Egon Spengler. By the end, the first ghost sounds a lot like Bruce Willis; the second, a surprisingly coherent Bill Cosby. --Nick Sylvester